Cynical lies and off-the-scale hypocrisy have been the daily fare from Westminster's politicians, Labour, Tory, and LibDem alike, over the atrocities perpetrated by the Israeli army in Gaza up to now.
Of course, the working class is used to smoke and mirrors over government policy, which has collapsed the NHS and tripled the number of working class people living in extreme poverty. But this 100% support for Netanyahu's systematic slaughter of Gazan civilians, no matter what - and against public opinion - seemed incomprehensible. Except that it's not unprecedented. One only has to recall the war against Iraq.
So, on the eve of the Israeli ground offensive against Rafah, Channel 4 news (meant to be less under the government's thumb than BBC) invited Israel's official gas-lighter in chief, the far-right Eylon Levy, to justify the impending massacre. This guy even claimed that if civilian deaths resulted, it would be the fault of "humanitarian organisations" who failed to "help" the Israeli army find a "safe place" for the over 1m Palestinians to flee to!
Yes, this from an Israeli regime which won't talk to the UN, the main humanitarian organisation in Gaza, claiming UNWRA is under the influence of Hamas. It has duly bombed and shelled most of the UN's facilities including schools which were sheltering thousands of refugees.
...4 months and more limbless children
So it's taken nearly 4 months - while Israel's army has swept from the north to the southern tip of the Strip, destroying everything in its path, before any western politician has even dared to "caution" Netanyahu over his merciless brutality.
In fact Israel's PM has every reason to believe he can get away with what many consider to be genocide, given the support he has had from the US and Britain. And incredibly, he continues to claim that every precaution is taken and every humanitarian "law" adhered to, in order to avoid civilian deaths!
Yes, after more than 28,000 are confirmed killed, 7,000 missing under the rubble plus 70,000 wounded - with at least half of them women and children. Do the Israeli warmongers and their supporters in Britain really think that normal, thinking people over here, or in the rest of the world - or even in Israel itself, where support for Netanyahu at the polls is only 15% - go along with any of this for even one second?
Netanyahu, who is not an idiot, treats everyone else like one - claiming that all he is doing is defeating and eradicating Hamas. When he knows very well that this isn't what he is doing, nor can do, and that the more he carries on with his bloody campaign, the more he creates recruits for Hamas and all the other similar groups.
They feed the conspiracies
So, in the context of such spectacular cynicism on all sides, but in particular the crude mass revenge being taken against a whole population in the absence of being able to track down Hamas, it's not too surprising that the Labour Party's former Rochdale by-election candidate, Azhar Ali, could claim that the Israeli security forces deliberately allowed the 7 October Hamas incursion. Such "theories" have been widespread on social media.
Having condemned Ali as anti-Semitic, and suspended him, Labour now has no candidate for this seat. And Starmer has no way of digging himself out of the hole he has created for himself since his declaration of unreserved solidarity with the killer Netanyahu. Indeed, Ali was only chosen to stand in the first place, in the hope that he could help Labour regain the support of voters of Muslim background, many of whom vowed never to vote Labour again.
In this regard, ironically, Tory Foreign Secretary, David Cameron may even have one over on Labour. While joining Biden in asking Netanyahu, politely, to exercise restraint in Rafah, he's now let it be known that his government might recognise a Palestinian state... "when it best serves the objective of peace". Empty declaration yes, but nevertheless opposing Netanyahu's de facto takeover of Gaza.
In the meantime the lying and ministerial war talk continues. Do they really intend to engage in a future war with Russia? Do they really intend to drag British youngsters into National service? Or is this all about the manifest economic disaster of their capitalist system and an attempt to blur class lines with the spectre of a "common enemy" and avert the class war at home, which is the only war we need!?
Whatever the case, workers can have no truck with any of these cynical liars, Tory, Labour, nor the rest. We need our own political party fighting for our interests and those of the workers and poor across the globe - Palestinians and Israelis included - against the exploiters and warmongers. It's the only way to ensure that in the future, we'll be free and at peace.